Amsterdam tram line 5
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Tramlijn 5 is a tram route in the capital of the Netherlands, Amsterdam. The route runs between the centre of Amsterdam and the town of Amstelveen, and is operated by the municipal transport company GVB. The line has twenty-seven stops[citation needed] with an average journey time of forty minutes end-to-end.[citation needed]
Tramlijn 5—aside from being one of two rapid transit routes to serve Amstelveen; the other being the Amsterdam Metro—also connects several important areas of the city, including the Zuidas financial district, Leidseplein and Dam Square. This makes it one of the city's busiest tram lines in service.[citation needed] It also has the distinction of having the most litter of any of GVB's tram lines,[citation needed] and also the most animals taken on board.[citation needed]
Infrastructure
Tramline 5 operates on a combination of street running and segregated tram- or tram-and-bus-only highways from its northern terminus at Westergasfabriek to just south of Amsterdam Zuid railway station. From Amsterdam Zuid, tram 5 shares a segregated tramway with express tram 51 of the Amsterdam Metro to a point just before its southern terminus in Amstelveen town centre.
Some platforms are located between the two tracks (cf. island platform) instead of to the side, as with the majority of Amsterdam's tram stops. Because of this, trams which provide the route's service must be equipped with doors on both sides of the vehicle; most of Amsterdam's tram vehicles have doors on the right since tram stops on other routes are located on the nearside of a road or tramway. The track layout at the line's southern terminus, Amstelveen Binnenhof, also requires tram vehicles to have a driver's cab at both ends since Binnenhof does not have a turning loop so trams can turn around and face in the opposite direction.
Until 2008, tram 5 trams used the elevated platforms within Amsterdam Zuid railway station proper. The construction of the Noord/Zuidlijn's terminus at Zuid meant that tram 5 had to be diverted and, today, the tram runs 200 m north of its former platforms along Strawinskylaan.
External links
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